this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (5 children)

We already got plenty of nuclear fusion output with no energy input on our part. But folks dont want solar panels

[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago (3 children)

What is with peoples insistence that we only ever use one kind of power generation?

Wind, solar, fusion, fission, hydro, they all have their uses. Why limit yourself like some kind of console fanboy?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

That's fair. Im big solar fanboy but if more people were fusion researchers the world wouldnt be a worse place.

[–] ForgotAboutDre 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Fusion is self sustained and highly scalable.

If it was practical we wouldn't need the other forms, except for places not serviced by electrical grids.

Fission takes a long time to build and finance. It hasn't been invested enough in. We need more green energy to replace fossil fuels faster than governments can get fusion plants up. That's why wind, solar and hydro are and should be the preference.

Hydro needs the right geography. Solar and wind need the right local weather. Solar great in a California desert, but terrible in Scotland where wind and hydro are very effective.

There some cases where a specific technology is the best and clearest option. But when fission becomes reliable, it will cover the vast majority of use cases in the highly Industrialised nations. Everything else will be niche.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Well as soon as I can get a fission reactor in my house I'll give up on energy independence then.

[–] maness300 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why limit yourself like some kind of console fanboy?

Propaganda by solar bros.

It's only the solar bros doing this because you can sell solar to the average idiot. Most people can't own other forms of clean energy generation directly.

[–] Cryophilia 1 points 9 months ago

I also have a suspicion that a lot of the renewables vs nuclear debate is stoked by fossil fuel interests

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

*minus the energy needed to make, maintain, and replace solar panels.

I support more solar installations, just calling out it isn't free power.

[–] rockSlayer 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As more solar is installed, the less power input we need to provide. There will be a point where all solar power required to make a solar panel will be produced by solar panels

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

As more solar panels are installed, more material and maintenance are required. They deteriorate over time, and require large physical areas.

I guess at that point, each panel needs to be extremely efficient to limit the space, extremely durable, made of cheap materials, easily recyclable into another panel.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

True, but that's not reliable source of energy though, specially during short and cloudy winter days when it's most needed. Look what happened in Germany and how they became on if the biggest European polluters. The key ingredient missing is energy storage. Once that's solved, solar panels would become much more useful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We could massively subsidize home battery storage and this wouldn't be an issue at all. Microgrids are the future anyway. The only reason why storage is an issue now is because it needs to be centralized. Once we get away from that tons of new possibilities open up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Home batteries are expensive and take a lot of place. Also they won't last more than a day. Imagine winter time with short cloudy days. Realistically you need at least a month worth of energy storage and even then you need sun to recharge it. They would distribute energy consumption better though by charging during night.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We have all the technology for energy storage we need, it just needs to be built. Theres gravity storage like pumped hydro, pressure storage, thermal storage, flywheels.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well, no. Sadly we don't. At least not in the range needed. All of these require either specific geographic relief, something really huge, too expensive or combination. Perhaps the most promising is the green hydrogen, but then again, we have yet to see it at such scale. I'd love to be wrong, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

something really huge

yeah, we use a lot of energy, absolutely every form of energy production we have involves really huge things. Massive mines, dams, pipelines, oil rigs, nuclear cooling towers, fossil fuel power plants, oil tankers. They just have to be built. we can excavate dams, build solid weight lifting facilities, molten salt storage, make arrays of flywheels. There's a ton of answers to energy storage already, they dont involve resources with any kind of scarcity, they just have to be built.

[–] Cryophilia 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Big construction involves environmental concerns, that's why we don't have many new dams nowadays

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Boi i better see you raising a fuss over that infrastructure bill

[–] Cryophilia 1 points 9 months ago

Grrl I don't remember voicing my own opinion on anything

[–] billwashere 3 points 9 months ago

Or bombs. They have fusion versions of those with a great deal more output than input but they’re not really fond of those either.